Spirit of beloved teacher filled by new instructor

Last week, St. Viator High School officials faced the unthinkable when Br. Robert Ruhl, their longtime advanced placement English teacher, died from a sudden heart attack.

This week, however, they faced an even thornier issue: replacing him.

It turns out the teacher they selected to fill his shoes came from an unlikely source: cross-town rival Hersey High School.

Jack Stanislaw has taught language arts and advanced placement English for the last 22 years in Northwest Suburban High School District 214, including the last six years at Hersey, where he taught mostly sophomores and seniors before retiring in 2006.

Figure in his first 12 years spent at North Chicago High School, and it comes up to 34 years of teaching, or nearly the same as Br. Ruhl, who spent his entire 35 years at St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights.

"There will never be another Br. Ruhl," St. Viator Principal Eileen Manno told his students, "but there will be a new AP English teacher who will establish new traditions."

For his part, Stanislaw says he and Br. Ruhl shared some of those traditions.

"I never met him, but it turns out that we were studying English literature at roughly the same time at the University of Chicago," Stanislaw says. "So when I looked at his syllabus and his lesson plans for the year, they looked familiar."

Despite that, Stanislaw concedes he was nervous to step back in the classroom. He expected to meet resistance from students in the five advanced placement classes of Br. Ruhl's that he picked up, but instead he found them receptive.

"Only one girl cried, so that was good," Stanislaw says.

Stanislaw found common ground with his students, he says, on wanting to continue preparing for the difficult advanced placement English tests they will take in May.

"The exam is very demanding and very specialized," Stanislaw added. "And the students are very motivated."

It was the college counselor at St. Viator, Kathy Duggan, who first suggested he apply for the job. Formerly, they had worked together at Wheeling High School, and Duggan knew Stanislaw was available.

And while he had found plenty of activities to keep himself busy in retirement -- including coaching the Hersey debate team, returning to the University of Chicago to study Asian literature and writing poetry -- he returned to his love of teaching.

"Our educational philosophies were pretty similar, so I'm trying to continue his work," Stanislaw says. "I want to keep up his spirit and be faithful to what he was trying to do."